End of year reflections | A disappointing 12 months

My end of year reflections this year are so difficult for me to type, let alone share. I’ve had the worst year and as 2022 slowly comes to an end, all I want to do is erase the past 12 months and start on a fresh clean sheet. As much as I believe in drawing lessons from every bad situation, I could have done without “learning” anything at all this year, had I known it would cause me this much pain.

I’m sorry if this post doesn’t have the positive twist you’re probably expecting. Don’t look for a happy ending, you will not find one. Even if there is probably a silver lining beneath it all, this isn’t a guide on how to get over a bad season. This post is more like a diary entry for the shittiest year I’ve had, and I want to be real with my feelings.

What a roller coaster of emotions I’ve just been through. This year I endured struggle, failure and heartache. I disappointed myself in more ways than one, and almost lost sense of who I was as a person. I cried more tears than I thought was possible and on a couple of occasions even experienced some very dark thoughts.

I lost sight of my moral compass and gave in to some pretty horrible habits. I let situations and people control me and lost my sense of self-worth in the process. The little confidence I had was shattered because I put my trust in the wrong people.

I cried for people who didn’t care about me and fell into a very toxic cycle of co-dependency. I failed to hold myself accountable even though I knew I was bringing some of this pain onto myself.

I experienced stress at work for the first time in a while – a job I love and that has rarely brought me grief. I let it consume me and it broke me, in many ways.

Motherhood kicked my ass all year in ways I can’t even share with the world. I struggled with it so much I started to resent becoming a mother.

I continued to compare myself to others even though I had promised I would never do that again, and needless to say this caused me feelings of inferiority and worthlessness.

This has been the worst journey of self-discovery. A discovery that I’m in fact not as strong as I thought I was, not as wise and not as disciplined as I thought I was.

I want to move on from what I’ve just gone through, but I don’t know if a new year can help me achieve total peace. Things don’t just change overnight and it will take some time for me to rebuild my self-worth.

What’s your year been like?